AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Rags was hungry, and she knew Bones had to be too. The plan was to follow Empire all the way to the houses by Coyote Creek. Not all of them had been scavenged, and Rags was sure they’d find something to eat. Last month they’d gone into one of those places and found two canned hams. Entire hams, and the cans weren’t swollen or anything. The can said they were fully cooked, and though Rags had never much liked ham, she ate a lot of it that day and loved every bite. Bones pretty much inhaled an entire ham by himself.
Maybe one of those houses would be a place to stay for a couple of nights while they worked the houses in the neighborhood. With any luck they’d find enough food that they could fill a shopping cart. Maybe some new clothes, too.
She was thinking about that as they left the trees and began walking along Empire. The street was empty, like most of San Jose. Rags had no idea why this town should be so deserted when there used to be so many people here. Either the town had somehow been evacuated during the crisis, or the dead had nearly all walked away since. Of the nearly one million people who used to live here, Rags guessed that there were no more than a few thousand of the dead. And a few dozen scavengers.
She had Bones, and they managed to steer clear of trouble. Most of the time.
Once they were on the street, Rags winced at the stink of a dead skunk that lay near a rusting FedEx truck and an Escalade sitting on four flat tires. Bones whined a little at the smell, and they both hurried past the dead creature, but as they did so the door of the Escalade suddenly swung open and two men stepped out.
Both of them wore leather jackets, hockey leg pads, football helmets, and thick gloves. One of them held a heavy wrench; the other had a long pole with a leather loop hanging from one end. Rags knew what that was; she’d seen it used on TV for catching wild animals. They drop the loop over the head, and the solid pole keeps the animal from getting close enough to bite.
Both men had tattoos of skulls on their forearms. Both men were smiling the kind of smile no girl ever wants to see.
Bones tensed, and there was that low growl again. Rags was scared, but not terrified. Two men against Bones. It would be ugly, but it would be short.
She pulled out her knife.
“That’s cute,” said the man with the wrench. “Little girl’s got herself a knife.”
His voice was crude, rough.
“Is that what that little thing is?” mused the man with the pole. “Thought it was a toothpick.”
Rags clenched the knife and held it against her chest.
“Might have to show her how it works,” said the first man. “Maybe carve some rules and regulations on her so she knows her place.”
“I’m warning you,” began Rags, but then Bones turned to look behind them. Rags turned too, and her heart froze in her chest.
Three more men were crossing the street. Two of them had poles with leather loops. The third had a fire ax.
All of them had skull tattoos.
A sound made her turn to the left, and there were two more men. Both of them big. Both with baseball bats. And with them walked a woman.
She was tall and thin, with dirty-blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. Skinny jeans and a tank top under an unzipped Oakland Raiders hoodie. She wore cheap sunglasses with white frames and dark lenses, and dark-orange lipstick. The woman walked with an exaggerated hip sway like she was all that, but Rags thought she was kind of hideous. Trashy and dangerous.
For a split second, seeing a woman made Rags wonder if this would be okay. Sometimes women looked out for each other.
Except when they were scavengers.
This crew, though . . . they looked better fed than the cannibals who roamed the dead cities. They were smiling, too, and Rags had never seen a scavenger smile. Maybe eating what they ate drove all the smiles from their faces. Maybe it made them crazy because they knew there was no coming back from where they’d gone.
Either way, these people looked different.
Every bit as dangerous, but not crazy. Or at least, not in the same way.
“Well, well, well,” said the woman, drawing the three words out. She had a red skull tattoo on her upper chest and a silver skeleton on a chain around her neck. “What on earth do we have here?”
Bones growled at her and shifted to stand between Rags and the woman. It was clear to the dog, just as it was clear to Rags, that this woman was in charge.
The woman eyed the dog, and if her smile flickered, it did so for only a moment. She snapped her fingers, and the men with the poles began spacing themselves out in a loose circle. None of them were close enough to do anything yet, but there was also nowhere for Rags and Bones to run.
“What do you want?” demanded Rags, and she hated that her voice sounded so thin and defensive. It sounded like a kid’s voice, and she wanted to sound strong.
“Pretty much what you think we want, little sister,” said the woman. “You get to play with the boys. And Rover there gets to come play in the pits.”
“Pits?”
